The Moronic Comeuppance
by Daroga's Rainy Daae
Summary: Poligny and Debienne are looking for new management for the Opera Garnier, and have created a very, er, shall we say... bad advertisement video. Written for the PFN humor contest.


The film didn't seem to be working for the first few seconds it was running, but there was only a small pause where the screen was entirely black with a faint buzzing of the audio before a grinning picture of Poligny flickered and held on to the television. Poligny blinked and grasped a microphone nervously in his hands. He sucked a ready intake of breath and began to talk.

"Is… is this thing on? It is? Oh, good. Hello! My name is Poligny, general co-manager in chief of the Opera Garnier with M. Debienne since 1874. We are retiring this year but hopefully this informative video will entice younger but still experienced businessmen to become the proud new managers of this exquisite theater. Gentlemen. The theater."

Poligny stepped out of the way of the camera and brandished a hand at the grand staircase behind him. Several ballet dancers pittered by, followed by Mme. Giry.

"As you can see, the ballet girls are eagerly hurrying to rehearsal. At the Opera Garnier, we stress the importance of perfection."

As Poligny spoke, the camera zoomed in on Mme Giry, who under closer speculation seemed more to be chasing the girls with her stick rather than rushing after them to rehearse as was first thought. No, there was definitely some screaming that was being picked up by the camera mic, even from so far away.

Poligny slid into the view quickly to cover up the scene and continued. "As you can see, the grand staircase is sculpted with Neo-baroque marble and onyx, which we are most proud of here; but don't be intimidated by its beauty. From here on in the video, you will not see anything more impressive, unless of course you count the ballroom fixtures, which we will also proudly present, later on in the film.

"Now we will show you footage of a typical day in the manager's office. You shall see what is expected of a manager to operate a theater successfully."

The camera switched scenes quickly and the lens wiggled as the cameraman positioned himself in a chair inside Poligny's and Debienne's office.

"M. Debienne. Will you put this letter into Mme. Giry's mailbox? It is a cast list," Poligny staged loudly.

"Wait. Let me review that cast first," Debienne said, taking the letter slowly and deliberately from Poligny. He opened it and several papers promptly fell to the ground. "Hello! What's this?" Debienne asked.

"That's not in the script-" Poligny started, but when he noticed the look on Debienne's face, he motioned for the cameraman to cut. The anonymous news reporter-wannabe instead continued filming. "My God, M. Debienne! That's another letter from the Opera Ghost!"

Debienne inspected the papers. "Lord, he sent us another one of his jury duties."

Poligny rubbed his neck and grumbled, "Well at least it wasn't a chain letter this time." He looked at the camera. "Hey. Hey! Is that still on? I told you to-"

The scene changed back to Poligny's tour. He was now proceeding down a well-lit hallway.

"These, gentlemen, are the performers' dressing rooms," Poligny said as the camera turned into an empty room laced with curtains and golden sinks. "As you can see, they are well accommodated. That is expected of a theater whose performers take their acting, singing and dancing quite seriously."

Right on unscripted cue, Jammes tore screaming down the hallway completely naked save for a sign across her chest that read "WORK HERE, SEE MORE."

Poligny's eyes became as round as coasters. "Cut," he whispered, feebly.

The scene switched to a recovered Poligny standing outside a large pair of doors.

"I am standing outside the rather fantastic ballroom of the opera house, one of the more well-known and popular recreational gathering places in Paris. It is excellent for parties and upper class Parisian dancing, but what we are to show you tonight are the spectacular light fixtures and ceiling art so decoratively posh that it will make a person positively beg to be able to manage it."

Poligny opened the doors to enter the dark ballroom. His silhouette motioned for the camera to point toward the ceiling art so that when he turned the lights on, it would create a sudden, breathtaking effect. Poligny scrambled for the lever and the lights exploded on with a pleasantly deep and echoing clank.

At that exact moment, a black figure that had been clinging to the dark light fixture squealed like a zapped mosquito and shot to the ground and out of sight. The camera quickly followed him, shaking wildly as the black intruder lay motionless for several seconds, hair on end and buzzing with little rods of electricity. Suddenly, he jumbled to his feet, tripped over his cape and disappeared through a wall. The camera focused back to Poligny, who hadn't taken his hand off the lever through the whole ordeal.

"Cut," he groaned.

"Here at the Opera Garnier," Debienne's voice said jauntily before his figure appeared too closely before the camera, "we enjoy a great many different cultures and classes of people." Behind him, a busy crowd in front of the theater was being filmed on an obviously different day than Poligny's troubling interview. The sun was high in the sky and Debienne had to squint as he faced the glare of the lens.

"My partner M. Poligny and I agree that without such a varied audience, we would not be as popular nor as well-reputed as were are today. We take our jobs with incredibly grave importance and respectable mannerisms. We must remember to provide our guests with excellent service, even though we are the managers. All the pressure is on us. If we make one mistake… well, you probably don't want to know about that, right? Being a manager of a theater is great, trust me."

Debienne gave a jaunty wink. "Please, follow me inside." He beckoned for the cameraman to enter with him into the Opera Garnier, where they traversed across the lobby into a small room that led to a conjoined office, which led out to a rehearsal room. "Lord, how wonderful. The crew left out some glazed donuts." Debienne hurried to a table that held a half-finished box of pastries.

"Managers often times stumble upon happy surprises," Debienne chuckled heartily, picking a donut from the box and shoving it into the camera to try to create a close-up. He only succeeded in smearing the camera lens with glaze before pushing the entire thing into his mouth. One could now only see the fuzzy non-detailed form of Debienne chomping contentedly on his reward before suddenly gagging and spitting the donut onto the ground. One could make out that he was pointing for the cameraman to turn around and look at something, which he did obediently in time to capture rare footage of… something unintelligible, fuzzy and dark.

"The Opera Ghost! My God, the Opera Ghost! Leon, are you getting this?" Debienne cried excitedly. "This is the first ever close shot anyone's ever gotten. Leon, do you have it?"

The camera zoomed in on Erik's looming form, which galumphed mysteriously around pillars and hunched silently. Unfortunately, the camera lens was still glazed over (no pun intended… I change my mind, pun is intended) and the footage was completely blurry. Erik disappeared behind one pillar and never emerged.

"Can you believe it! We're going to be rich men, Leon, rich- what? What are you doing? Wait, what's wrong with the lens? Are you telling me… GODDAM-"

"Bonjour," Debienne said pleasingly as rain poured down around him on a different day, yet again, after the camera switched scenes.

"As you can see we are enjoying an average day of rain in Paris. And where better to enjoy it but at the Opera Garnier?" He stepped to the left to reveal the outside grounds. "This is the garden which productively adds a very serene and soothing atmosphere to the grandeur of the interior structure of this building."

A fountain gurgled in the background and thunder rumbled meditatively in the skies.

A bolt of lightening unexpectedly struck a bromeliad all of a sudden, from which the already electrically-charged figure in black leapt with a terrible yelp of pain. The camera caught him charging full out down the dirt path toward safety as a plastic lawn deer uprooted itself from the ground and statically began to tumble rapidly in the figure's direction. He paused to turn and had enough time to register in his mind what it was that made so much noise behind him before being pummeled to his back on the ground.

The cameraman zoomed into the commotion dramatically as the image depicted the figure an inch from death, the plastic deer's antlers merely centimeters away from his crotch, only stopped by its stiff, ceramic legs digging into the ground before him. The figure promptly passed out.

"Good Lord, what the hell just happened here? Was that man just attacked by a lawn deer?" Debienne's jovial voice called from out of the frame before the camera cut off.

Both Debienne and Poligny appeared in the next shot, smiling and business-like on a balcony above the lobby.

"We hope that this informative video provided you with enough helpful tips and tours to comfortably ready you for such a highly praised position in this city as general manager of an opera house. Hopefully you may now confidently enter these doors with a feeling of pride and cool assurance that you will pass our interview with flying colors. Not only that, but impress us to such a tremendous extent that we hire you the instant you walk into our office," Poligny said.

"Remember that as we have worked here for an impressive 11 years, you can trust that we will tell you everything you need to know to make your visit and hiring, a success. Thank you for joining us, I'm M. Debienne," Debienne added.

"And I'm M. Poligny. Good luck. And goodbye."

Poligny pressed the power button on the remote control, turning the video off. He covered his face with his hands and began to cry. The room was silent, Debienne shifted in his seat uncomfortably. Poligny was finally able to gasp a few words.

"Doomed, doomed, doomed," he sobbed. "I can't believe you sent that out before it was edited. No one… not even the biggest idiot in the world is going to interview with us, now…"

"Don't worry," Debienne said quietly, fearfully. "Someone is bound to show up."

"Yeah. A couple of complete morons!"

The next day, Richard and Moncharmin were hired.


End file.
